Unfortunately, I left on a very sour note. I tried to add a little bit of humour in my penultimate lesson, and it seems something I said had touched a nerve with one of the tutors. In the post-lesson feedback session rather than take me to one side and address the issue privately, he proceeded to scold me like a child and humiliate me in front of my peers. I found this very upsetting and incredibly unprofessional.

Furthermore, the other tutors chose their favourite students early on gave them more focus and better, more personalised feedback. People like myself suffered from very generic feedback.

The school does post jobs regularly, via email.

If you’re looking to pass a CELTA ‘under the radar’ then St. Giles is for you. If you’re looking for a quiet location away from central London, St. Giles is also great for that. But if you’d like the tutors to give you better assistance and personalised feedback, look elsewhere.

The course was tough, thorough, compact, entirely topic specific and extremely well taught.

In spite of having appropriate qualifications and work experience which complements the use of English

in a specific discourse – I had no idea how little I knew about grammar and pronunciation prior to my TESOL course.

Likewise although reasonably articulate I had no idea how to teach vocabulary and this particular feature was well

instructed by the trainers.

It should be apparent from the above that I found no fault with the course in terms of either content or the way it was taught.

Successful completion of this course is an invaluable tool if a desire to work in EFL is the end goal.

Being independently wealthy I went onto work in the developing world and teach I.E.L.T.S to adults and have accomplished some well referenced success.

Working voluntarily in places where technology is primitive as is material and general facilities are poor is of course a challenge.

It is more than compensated for by the level of appreciation and achievement of those I teach. Hard to put a price on that !

I accept my rather innovative ways of “old school” working may raise a few eye browses in the EFL industry and if so, fair enough I suppose.

None the less I would never have known where to start in such a nebulous subject had it not been for the highly capable trainers at St Giles and the utterly brilliant course they taught. The successes I have earned over hear in Kathmandu belong as much to St Giles as they do me.

Going forward the institution is fortunate to have a great co – ordinator who arranges C.P.D. classes and for those of us who attend we were lucky enough to have had a recent session with none other than Adrian Underhill.

I cant fault St Giles, its courses or its staff and I would be surprised if any former student could.

Peter Franey Sept 2018

Kathmandu Nepal

Regular follow up from the office.

Very professional and involved teaching staff.

Precise class structure and feedback format.

Good availability of materials.

Good study atmosphere.

Real class involvement.

Real dedication to making student – teachers succeed.